The Spanish Association of Brick and Tile Manufacturers (Hispalyt) has produced a picture of the ceramics industry in Spain. According to Hispalyt, there were 430 manufacturers in Spain in 2006, with consolidated turnover of 1,475 million euros, producing 29.93 million tonnes and employing some 14,000 people.

Thus the picture of an average ceramics works is as follows:

Annual turnover →

3.430.000 EUR

Employees→

32,5

Production →

71.500 tonnes/year

Annual production per employee →

2.200 tonnes

Looking only at Hispalyt members, accounting for some 70% of the industry, the small number of companies is noteworthy: up to 95% of members have just one production plant. The top 10 member manufacturers are:

Position

Name

Annual production volume (in tonnes)

Daily production volume (in tonnes)

1

Cerámicas Mazarrón

825.641

2.262

2

Cerámica La Oliva

773.442

2.119

3

Grupo Díaz Redondo - HDR

597.352

1.637

4

Ceranor

551.499

1.510

5

Cerámica Espíritu Santo

507.089

1.389

6

Cerámica La Esperanza

504.200

1.381

7

Cerámica La Paloma

452.981

1.241

8

Grupo Jumisa

433.129

1.187

9

Cerámica La Escandella

366.119

1.003

10

Cerámica Malpesa

359.000

984

Production forecasts for 2007 are the same as or slightly higher than 2006 levels. Industry growth will be driven by quality enhancements and added value as a result of efforts in recent years to improve competitiveness.

INFORMA DUN & BRADSTREET S.A., a subsidiary consultancy firm of CESCE (Spain’s benchmark in risk management), which specialises in providing commercial and financial information, has awarded BERALMAR top score under its Risk Indicator on examining Spain’s top 25,000 companies.

Based on over 30 indicators, such as year of incorporation, defaults, sales, profit, net worth, etc., INFORMA D&B has assessed the risk of leading Spanish companies, scoring them from 1 to 4 according to risk indicators:

Indicator

Risk Level

1

Minimum risk

2

Low risk

3

Above-average risk

4

High risk

BERALMAR has been awarded indicator 1 under this scale, literally interpreted as "Commercial transactions can be entered into with the company. If need be, long-term payment can be granted."

Interestingly, only 1.21% of Spanish companies enjoy the best risk score. In addition, BERALMAR TECNOLOGIC is the best-rated company of all structural ceramics industry companies.

In recognition, INFORMA D&B has issued BERALMAR with a Certificate recognising the company as “one of the best Spanish companies in 2006”.

BERALMAR TECNOLOGIC has started operating a new tunnel kiln and dryer in this Central American country’s leading ceramics works.

Panamanian company Procesadora de Arcilla, entrusted BERALMAR with building a FORNTHERMIC tunnel kiln 104.5 metres long, and a MESTRAL semi-continuous shelf-dryer, for total daily production of 350 tonnes of fired material.

The kiln is fuelled by petroleum coke, distributed to the kiln via PROMATIC system. Biomass is also used to generate heat for the dryer. The facility is designed to cut down fuel bills

The new works are operating at full capacity, and we expect them to continue to do so for many years to come.

BERALMAR has developed a new biogas firing facility for CERÀMICA PIERA. This manufacturer already had two kilns at its production plant in Hostalets de Pierola (Barcelona), using hybrid biogas and natural gas burners built by BERALMAR, and once again has chosen a biogas firing line for the plant’s third kiln.

Biogas used at CERÀMICA PIERA comes from the Can Mata landfill site 1.5 km from the plant. Biogas is mainly made up of methane, with calorific power of some 4,700 Kcal/m3. Biogas burners have to adjust for this poor heat generation by injecting a higher biogas/air flow than for natural gas burners, and due to corrosiveness of some of its components. In addition, biogas burner sets are dual-purpose, in other words, they can switch to natural gas at any time. This is essential given that biogas supplies are not always consistent, so in the event of pressure loss in biogas, the automatic fire control system orders a fuel change, which is frequently done automatically with no human intervention.